Versus Arthritis award Med Tech funding

Versus Arthritis, the UK’s largest charity dedicated to supporting people with arthritis, have awarded a Medical Technologies Proof of Concept grant (£96,246.76) to develop and evaluate BloodTrackR’s potential to monitor arthritis patients at home.

People with arthritis have painful, stiff and swollen joints and experience ‘flares’, or episodes where their symptoms worsen. These are more frequent when treatments aren’t working so well and doctors need to identify flares to reduce joint damage, disability and heart problems. There are few user-friendly methods to safely and reliably collect blood samples to monitor flares in person with arthritis whilst they are at home. This is of particular importance with COVID-19 restrictions and reduced access to clinical care.

The purpose of the project is to initially develop and test changes to the device and a new mobile phone app, with input from people with arthritis, hospital lab staff, arthritis doctors and industry partners with an interest in methods to monitor conditions. By the end of the project, a final version of the prototype will be checked for conformity with European medical device safety regulations (CE mark) and the device commercialized to make it available to users. Regulatory conformity will allow BloodTrackR to be tested in clinical trials which would provide evidence of clinical utility.

The development of BloodTrackR fits with Versus Arthritis’ vision to develop products which help improve the lives of those living with musculoskeletal conditions. By delivering the device to the marketplace the project will greatly improve management and health care services for people living with musculoskeletal conditions.

Potential benefits of the technology to patients include greater convenience, reduced hospital visits, finger prick blood is less painful than needles in your arm, it can empower the patient to manage their condition. The project will run over the next 2 years in partnership with AstraZeneca, Signant Health, Health and Social Care NI, Ulster University and the Medical Technologies Innovation and Knowledge Centre.